among Christians to the doctrine of Chiliasm, or the one thousand years' reign of Christ on earth, with his saints, in the enjoyment of corporeal delights, which Irenæus and others, having regard to the "antiquity of the man," adopted and defended, but to which the mighty arm of Origen Adamantius finally gave a death blow. He was the reporter, too, of the tradition, which he ascribes to John "the elder," and which seems to have passed current with most of the ancient ecclesiastical writers, and may probably be true, in part, that Mark, who was the companion of Peter, and acted as his interpreter, wrote his Gospel according to his recollection of Peter's discourses. To the same author is traced the assertion that Matthew wrote in Hebrew, which seems to have been the primitive belief. Among the fabulous relations of Papias, Eusebius mentions one which was found in one of the false gospels, that according to the Hebrews.

Papias in peering about for traditions and old stories, of which he seems to have collected a goodly number, no doubt gleaned some truths; but he is evidently no authority for any thing, except as a witness as to what he saw and heard, and about which he could hardly be mistaken; nor did Eusebius regard him as entitled to much respect, the above narrative embracing the substance of the information which he professes to have derived from him, which he gives as tradition.*

Among the Apostolic Fathers, we think that Eusebius has not appealed to Barnabas, Clement of Rome, or Hermas, as an authority. He has given two extracts from the Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch, one relating to his journey from Syria to Rome, under a guard of soldiers, the other to a reported conversation of Christ with Peter after the resurrection, not recorded in our present Gospels, and obtained, as Eusebius says, he knew not whence, but which, as Jerome informs us, was found in the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Two brief extracts follow from a letter of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, in which mention is made of the Epistles of Ignatius as sent to him, but in which no more important information is contained.†

He also gives a short extract from Quadratus, the Apologist, the first, as it is said, who presented a written apology for Christianity to a Roman Emperor. Quadratus flourished a

* Lib. iii. c. 39.

+ Lib. iii. c. 36.

little after the year 120, and, according to Eusebius, presented his Apology in 126. In the extract alluded to, he speaks of the miracles of Jesus, and asserts that some of those raised from the dead by him, survived to his own times.*

These, we believe, are all the Christian writings, to which Eusebius has appealed as sources of history, before the time of Justin Martyr, that is, till near the middle of the second century; and the short fragments to which we have alluded constitute all that remains of those writings in a form entitled to be regarded as genuine.

In pursuing our design of presenting a view of the lost works, or works of which a few fragments only are extant, appealed to by Eusebius as authorities, for a hundred or hundred and twenty-five years after the date just mentioned, that is, till his own times, our limits will allow us to do little more than give a bare enumeration of the names and titles of documents, and the authors to whom they are attributed. From this enumeration, however, the intelligent reader will be able to form some tolerably accurate judgment of the worth of the materials included in it, without any comments of our own.

Authorities, such as they are, begin, from about the middle of the second century, to multiply. Among them, we may mention Hegesippus, a converted Jew, who flourished about the year 170, and wrote five books of Ecclesiastical Memoirs, of which we have now only some fragments preserved by Eusebius, and a very short one quoted by Photius at second hand. Eusebius speaks of him with great respect, though he seems to have been a rude and incoherent writer, and the judgment of the Christian world concerning him, has been generally unfavorable.†

For some traditions, respecting the early affairs of Christians,

* Lib. iv. c. 3.

Kestner, in a dissertation inserted in his treatise "De Eusebii Auctoritate et Fide Diplomaticâ," Gott. 1816, has attempted a defence of the historical fidelity of Hegesippus, we do not think, with entire success, against what he calls the unjust and perverse judgments, pronounced concerning him. Moeller, it seems, had called him a dealer in fables, and a most futile trifler, rather than an historian, and Strothe had said, that he is so incoherent, that "you would think you were reading the meditations of a shoemaker in the language of a Scythian." The specimens of his performance, given by Eusebius, certainly do not tend to inspire any very deep regret for its loss. See Euseb. Hist. ii, 23; iii, 16, 20, 32'; iv. 8, 22.

ter.

he refers as authority to a lost work (the "Hypoty poses" or "Institutions") of Clement of Alexandria, who lived near the end of the second century, good authority for the fact that such traditions existed in his day, but of course none at all for their truth. He gleaned a little too from his work against Heresies. Some facts in regard to the time of keeping Easter by the churches of Asia, and incidental notices of some of the Apostles and other Christians of note, particularly the places where they were said to have been buried, are related on the authority of Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, and cotemporary with Clement, a man apparently of no mean capacity, a part of whose letter to Victor, bishop of Rome, the historian has preserved. For some of the facts alluded to, the testimony of the letter is of the very best description. It was called forth by the famous controversy concerning the proper time of keeping EasEusebius appears to have had before him letters of Victor himself, written on the occasion, excommunicating the churches of Asia, the Synodical Letters of the bishops assembled in Palestine, Pontus, and some other places, a private letter of Bacchyllus of Corinth, and, as he says, of "many others." He gives an extract from one of Irenæus, bishop of Lyons in Gaul, apparently synodical, and containing some interesting remarks relating to the conduct and character of Polycarp, with whom Irenæus was acquainted in his youth. Some other lost pieces of his were in possession of Eusebius, as also a letter of the martyrs of Lyons to Eleutherus of Rome, partly relating to Irenæus, and the celebrated letter of the churches of Lyons and Vienna, concerning their martyrs, addressed to the churches of Asia and Phrygia, from which he has given very copious extracts. In fact we suspect that he has preserved it nearly entire. On the subject of the martyrs who had suffered before this time at Pergamus, as Carpus, Papulus, and Agathonica, he refers to their acts and monuments as still extant in his time.‡

In reference to the planting of the Corinthian church by Paul and Peter, their martyrdom at Rome, their sepulchres there, and that of Philip at Hierapolis, he quotes from a letter of Dionysius of Corinth, and from a book of Caius against Proclus, extant in his time. Caius, too, is his authority in part

* Lib. v. c. 23, 24. † Lib. v. c. 1, 2, 3. § Lib. ii. c. 25; Lib. iii. c. 28, 31.

Lib. iv. c. 15.

for what he says of Cerinthus. He flourished at the beginning of the third century, and is called by Eusebius an "ecclesiastical man"; but of his history little is known. Dionysius wrote in the latter part of the second century. Besides the letter alluded to, Eusebius mentions some others of his as extant, from which he gleans a few facts.*

In his notice of Montanus and the Cataphrygians, a sect of the second century, he quotes from Apollonius, an "ecclesiastical writer," as he styles him; † from an author whose name, if known to him, he has not divulged; ‡ and from Serapion, bishop of Antioch, who also wrote a book to prove the Gospel according to Peter a forgery, from which Eusebius has furnished an extract.

His account of Artemon, who lived in the second century, and who maintained that the doctrine of Christ's simple humanity was an article of the primitive faith, he professes to take from an anonymous writer, who attempted a confutation. of his heresy, of course a suspicious authority. In the case of Paul of Samosata, who was of the same school, his principal authority appears to have been the Letter of the Council of Antioch, of which he inserts a part, if not the whole. He alludes also to a discussion between Paul and Malchion, minutes of which, taken by notaries at the time, were extant in his day.¶

In his account of Novatus, the heretic and "first anti-pope,' about the middle of the third century, he quotes from a letter of his rival and enemy, Cornelius, bishop of Rome, who is his principal authority, though, however, he appeals to letters of Cyprian and "the bishops with him," and the decrees of the council which condemned the heresiarch. The letter of Cornelius is addressed to Fabius of Antioch.**

For some facts relating to the final expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem, he relies on the authority of Aristo of Pella.†† He gives Apollinaris of Hierapolis as his principal authority in the case of the fulminating legion, who, it seems, was mistaken as to the origin of the epithet, for the legion bore it before the occurrence of the reputed miraculous shower. He cites let

ters of Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, the friend and admirer of Origen, as authority for some cotemporary transactions.* Upon the discrepancies between the genealogies of Matthew and Luke, he quotes from a letter of Julius Africanus, the chronologist, to Aristides.† He gives an extract from the Paschal Canons of Anatolius of Laodicea, a man of eminence in his day, and who appears to have possessed no ordinary share of ancient and particularly Jewish learning.‡ One of his references is to Agrippa Castor, who wrote against Basilides, in the former part of the second century. A quotation is given from the Apology of Melito of Sardis, late in the same century, relating to the persecution which Christians underwent in his time, therefore a cotemporary authority, and another from a different work of his, containing a catalogue of the books of the Old Testament.¶ For the suicide of Pilate he refers, as authority, to the Greek writers of the Olympiads.** He has quoted from a book of Rhodon against Marcion, A. D. 190,†† and from Porphyry's books against the Christians.‡‡

In his sixth and seventh books, Eusebius has made great use of the epistolary writings of Dionysius, called the Great, bishop of Alexandria. In his preface to his seventh book, he acknowledges his very great obligations to him; he says, that Dionysius shall compose the book with him in his own words, relating the occurrences of his times in the letters he has left. Dionysius was an honest man, and reputed to be learned and eloquent. He mingled much in the affairs of Christians of his time, A. D. 247, and wrote of what he had seen and heard, and a "great part" of which he was. His authority, allowing for the ordinary weaknesses and imperfections of human nature, is entitled to great respect.

Such are the documents before the time of Eusebius, and expressly named by him as authorities, which have now wholly or in part perished, and of many of which we have only portions preserved by him. To these we must add the productions appealed to by him, which have entirely, or in a great measure, survived the injuries of time; as the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna in relation to the martyrdom of Polycarp and others, if our present copies be genuine, a piece which exhibits some marks of credulity in the writers, the produc

* Lib. vi. c. 11, 14, 19. †i. 2. ¶ Lib. iv. c. 26.

** ii. 7.